The present invention relates to a new and improved method of, and apparatus for, turning or inverting continuously conveyed flat structures or products, especially substantially flat flexible products, particularly printed products, arriving or infed in an imbricated formation such as to retain their original infed imbricated formation after the flat structures have been turned or inverted.
The inverting or turning apparatus for the substantially flat flexible structures, in particular substantially flat printed products, comprises an infed device or means for the infeed of the substantially flat flexible structures and an outfeed device or means for the outfeed or delivery of the substantially flat flexible structures. In the case of printed products, especially newspapers or parts of newspapers, arriving in an imbricated formation, it frequently happens that the side of the printed product which is situated lowermost in the imbricated formation or product stream should be situated at the top or uppermost in such imbricated product stream for the further processing operation, for instance for the collating or assembling together of individual different printed products into a finished or final product. This turning or inversion of the previously situated lower side of the printed products so as to now constitute the upper side of the printed product is required so that in the final product the individual product parts are correctly oriented with regard to one another.
In order to accomplish turning or inversion of the products about axes extending substantially parallel to the product conveying direction it is known to twist the imbricated product formation, through the use of suitable guide facilities, in the product conveying direction through an angle of 180.degree.. However, there is then annihilated the classical imbricated product formation wherein the leading edge of each printed product overlaps the trailing edge of the preceding or leading printed product. After twisting of the imbricated product stream through an angle of 180.degree. as taught in the prior art discussed above, the imbricated product stream is oriented such that the trailing edge of each printed product overlaps the leading edge of the next following or successive printed product. Yet, this is disadvantageous for further processing of the printed products.